Elsa & Fred: Unconvincing Sentimentality

Throughout his career, British director Michael Radford has been making films about couples of various kinds, from the urban Brits of 1984 to the rural Italians of Il Postino. In his remake of the 2005 Spanish-Argentinian hit Elsa y Fred, a rumpled widower (Christopher Plummer, who won his first Oscar at 82 for Beginners) moves into the same New Orleans apartment building as a vivacious fabulist (Shirley MacLaine). Eighty-year-old Fred, who describes himself as “the dead